Cantata Singers' Expanded Chamber Series Begins Tonight

Cantata Singers' expanded Chamber Series begins tonight, November 17, 2017 at 7:30pm at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with Made in America, a program of twentieth-century American chamber music by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Irving Fine. Cantata Singers' Chamber Series will be in residence at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge for the entirety of the 2015-16 Season.

"This wonderful expansion and new relationship offers the opportunity for us to deepen our musical offerings. We are delighted that our Chamber Series has found a new home at the Academy's remarkable 225-seat Norton's Wood's Center Auditorium in Cambridge, an undiscovered high-quality music venue with stunning acoustics," said David Hoose, Cantata Singers' Music Director.

The Academy sits on a five-acre campus in Cambridge, located between Harvard Square and Porter Square. The Norton's Woods building was designed in 1980 by the architectural firm Kallmann MicKinnell & Wood, whose other projects include Boston's City Hall and the DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park. They incorporated design elements from across the centuries into the building, taking inspiration from ancient Greek Classical architecture, Renaissance Tuscan villas, and the American Arts and Crafts movement. The building visually represents the Academy's grand 200-year-old history while maintaining an intimacy of a headquarters and home for this seminal organization. Academy member's acceptances letters are placed along the walls of the soaring and light-filled atrium, surrounded by intimate conference rooms and reception areas with elegant fireplaces and beautiful views out onto the gardens.

Cantata Singers' Chamber Series will take place in the auditorium, a modern amphitheater inspired by ancient Roman architecture and sleek, minimalist design. The staggered velvet couches seat 225 in a luxurious and intimate setting. Chamber Series Director Allison Voth designed a series that complements the music featured in Cantata Singers' main choral concert series.

Made in America features some of the finest and most characteristic twentieth-century American chamber music by American composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Irving Fine. The beautiful and pastoral "Zion's Walls," "Simple Gifts," and "Shall We Gather By the River" paired with the delicate and reflective "Emily Dickinson Songs" reveal Copland's profoundly visceral aesthetic. Paired with Irving Fine's haunting Mutability and the contrasting Hermit Songs by Samuel Barber, the program reveals the overlapping elements of each composer's uniquely "American" sound. Cantata Singers members performing include Brian Church, Angelynne Hinson, Kathy Howard, Kimberly Leeds, Lisa Lynch, Michael Merullo, Jennifer Webb, Ron Williams, and Majie Zeller. Yehudi Wyner, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, accomplished pianist, and a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, will speak about the program in a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.

Chamber Series Director Allison Voth is an associate professor of music at Boston University's School of Music, and principal coach at Boston University's Opera Institute. She is a well-known diction coach in Boston and New York and widely concertized with Lucine Amara of the Metropolitan Opera. She has worked as diction coach and/or répétiteur with such companies as Opera Boston, Boston Lyric Opera, Emmanuel Music, Chautauqua Opera, Providence Opera, Granite State Opera, the Verismo Opera of New Jersey, and Opera North. As a champion of new music, she has performed and assisted in the premieres of many new works with ALEA III, Collage New Music, The New Music Consort, The Group for Contemporary Players and the National Orchestra Assocation New Music Project. She is a specialist in the music of Paul Bowles and was on the cutting edge of the Paul Bowles revival movement in the 1990s.

The Chamber Series continues on Friday, February 26, 2016 at 7:30pm with My End is My Beginning, featuring Luciano Berio's Cries of London alongside other works for chamber chorus and guitar by Machaut, Janequin, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Pärt, conducted by Amy Lieberman. It will conclude on Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 7:30pm with the Circle of Friends program led by Allison Voth. The program features songs and duets for voice and piano by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms, alongside instrumental chamber ensemble works by Brahms.

Single Tickets $25, discounts for students, seniors, and groups

For more information, contact Cantata Singers at 617.868.5885, or visit our website, www.cantatasingers.org.